Poser Newbie Thread

Ok, I've been working in Poser since version 3. Poser is my main go to program when it comes to 3D. So I figured I'd start a thread for anyone new to Poser or anyone who has Poser questions they need help with. Anyone is welcome to offer helpful hints, tips or general Poser knowledge.

Comments

I inadvertently overwrote ALL my PROP FILES that came with Poser 8 yesterday with the prop file of an old content folder I was trying to move into my Poser 8 Runtime Folder. How can I recover those Prop Files? I am wiling to delete Poser 8 from my hard drive and then install it again since I am just beginning to use Poser I don't have any new content yet that I will lose by doing this. However, before attempting that solution I thought I'd ask if there is an alternative and also will Poser allow me to reinstall? (I have a Mac OS X.). Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I inadvertently overwrote ALL my PROP FILES that came with Poser 8 yesterday with the prop file of an old content folder I was trying to move into my Poser 8 Runtime Folder. How can I recover those Prop Files? I am wiling to delete Poser 8 from my hard drive and then install it again since I am just beginning to use Poser I don't have any new content yet that I will lose by doing this. However, before attempting that solution I thought I'd ask if there is an alternative and also will Poser allow me to reinstall? (I have a Mac OS X.). Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

First I ahev to say that even as I have Poser 2010 I'm not a "Poser user". But it sounds like you moved something to your Poser xx(Runtime/Libraries/ that was named Props and it was overwritten.

If you have TimeMachine active and backup of that directory you would be able to just restore from a previous timepoint, othewise I know there is a P8 Content Update download, but I think it require the original content to be intact.

I would say Reinstall P8; I dont remember if the installer has a separate installer option for content only.

If I change my background color in Poser(9) and render it/'save it (as png) how come the bg color is not kept? It changes to whitish. Is it because it is saved as png? Is there a way I can get my preferred choice of bg color to be saved as part of the scene?

yup, i usually render over black, then save as a png, this gives me individual characters on a transparency, i can then stack up layers in Paint Shop Pro. the nice thing is, this allows me to add things like fog and other effects and based on how i place the layers my post work can be behind some things and in front of others, adding more depth

Thanks for the tips! I just started getting into Poser and it's my goal to actually improve over the summer. I've always used DAZ, but it's nice to know more than one program of the same kind.

Here's another question for you, more often than not, when I've rendered a scene, it looks "dirty". Like the walls have grayish markings/scratchings on them even though I've checked off "cast shadows" on the properties of the objects/figures. What causes this and how do I get rid of it?

in your light properties check the shadow blur radius, some times you can get that if it is set to low, also try adjusting the shadow bias. Also i believe ( I could be wrong here ) that checking cast shadows off stops the object from casting a shadow, not receiving shadows cast by other objects

just another quick tip, if you get an object that kinda blows up like a marshmallow in Poser, you can go into the object properties and turn smoothing off. You can also adjust the amount of smoothing by the numbers, but i find just clicking it off does the trick and is quick

you can also turn off smoothing in the render settings, but this tends to make everything a tad chunky looking, instead of smooth lines on your figured you get hard straight lines on your figures, turning smoothing off in the object properties makes your objects nice and crisp while leaving your figures smoothly curved

just another quick tip, if you get an object that kinda blows up like a marshmallow in Poser, you can go into the object properties and turn smoothing off. You can also adjust the amount of smoothing by the numbers, but i find just clicking it off does the trick and is quick

you can also turn off smoothing in the render settings, but this tends to make everything a tad chunky looking, instead of smooth lines on your figured you get hard straight lines on your figures, turning smoothing off in the object properties makes your objects nice and crisp while leaving your figures smoothly curved

Thanks for being helpful. I will definitely keep all of these in mind.

I am sure this isn't the last you've heard from me. My next questions would most likely be related to the material room. It is just a tad bit less friendly than DAZ', but that's for another day :-)

Ok, what is it folks most want to learn about the material room? There is a lot of things you can do in there, doing one tutorial that covers everything is a bit overwhelming, maybe we can break this down into smaller chunks